Anyone good at population genetics?

One thing that's bugging me...this teacher is using "paint" as a color term when it is a breed. Pinto is the proper term when dealing with color. *facepalm*

Do you mind if I ask what class you are taking? Unfortunately, I am a Commerce student, so I can't help you with population genetics, but I'm just curious about the class and the program this is part of. Is it Vet. Science, or just biology with horses being the subject?

It's just a regular into level genetics class, it just so happens she picked horses to put on this extra credit.

Thanks! I wish you luck!

Thanks everyone for the help. I managed to get 13 extra credit points at least which will be helpful.

One last thing I'm wondering. One of the questions is "In the gene pool for the original small herd, what alleles were present at:

A) the E (black/red) locus?
B) the C (color dilution) locus?
C) the To (paint) locus?

I -thought- I had it right but she took some points off and circled "alleles" in the question.

I put that there were 8 with ee (sorrel) on A. 2 CCcr (palomino) and 6 CC (no cream) on B. And that there were 2 TO? And 6 toto for C.

Is that not right? I thought those were alleles...unless she wanted me to actually write out color names...I only wrote "ee" and such but it seems like she would have known anyway.

I'm pulling out the dusty biology memories from way back, but doesn't an allele only refer to one of the letters? (forgive my lack of technical jargon) Like for example, one chestnut parent will contribute one "e" allele and the other will also contribute one "e" allele making the foal "ee"? I could be totally off, but I vaguely remember something surrounding that.

"Original herd has one palomino paint stallion, one sorrel stallion, four sorrel mares, one palomino mare, and one sorrel paint mare."

Just going to say first that your notation of cream confuses me (I use 'n' for absence of one allele...so one dose of cream would be nCr).

Palomino Tobiano (stallion) = ee nCr TT/nT
Sorrel (stallion) = ee
Sorrel (mares x4) = ee
Palomino (mare) = ee nCr
Sorrel Tobiano (mare) = ee TT/nT

A) the E (black/red) locus? ee (all horses, 8)
B) the C (color dilution) locus? nCr (2 horses)
C) the To (paint) locus? TT or nT (2 horses)

You are correct. Your teacher has an obviously limited understanding of this subject. She shouldn't even include something like this if she has no idea what she's talking about, IMHO.

No, she is right. There are 8 horses with ee alleles, meaning a total of 16 e alleles. 2 Cr (or whatever dominant cream is for her mutant program). 14 cr (recessive cream). TO is the harder one - were they homozygous or not?

The cream format I'm using is not mine, it's how she likes it, I hate it too.

I think I'm going to fight it because I did exactly that and a lot of other people I've asked feel the same way about it.

I actually just notice. The teacher said nothing about how many alleles there were. She only asked what the alleles were...